#1: Courtenay Footman (Courtenay) on Aug 2, 2025

Yesterday (Friday, 8/1/2025) and today the server has been responding very slowly, taking many seconds to bring up a new puzzle, putting up previous solutions, and saving. This is new; previously webpbn has been very fast.

(My internet connection is good, >90 MB sec^-1.)

Agreed, v-e-r-y slow response time starting yesterday. I'm sure that Valerie will take steps to fix it if she can.

I noticed the severe lag a few days ago and thought it was my equipment. I restarted everything. I erased history. I ran a debugging program. Then I noticed a lot of people double posting and realized the lag was not just my stuff. I hope someone can fix it. I love this site.

Seems a little fraster today, but not up to its usual snappy speeds

I just found this thread. (There's a thread in the webpbn group on Facebook about this too.) Webpbn is on a server that is shared with other sites that are hosted by the same web hosting company. Usually when there's a slowdown like this, there is another site on the shared server that is using a lot of resources. So I contact tech support at our host, they address the site that is a resource hog, and then things are fine again.

So a couple of days ago I contacted tech support, but this time they said that since the site has custom programming, they can't help with slowdowns. I pointed out that the programming hasn't changed much in years, and that the site was zippy until a few days ago. So someone from tech support looked at the server, fine-tuned some settings, and the site got a little faster, though not back to where it was a few days ago.

My next step will be to look at the site to see if it reached any kind of resource limit that could be slowing it down, like if the database reached a maximum size or anything like that.

I still think the most likely problem is a resource-hogging site on the shared server, though hopefully our host would have found it if it was that.

It may be a day or two before I can fully focus on this.

Anyway, I will keep you posted.

Thanks, Valerie. We know you always do your best for us.

I'm not on fb or any other socials -- for privacy; I'm not a Luddite -- so I'm happy that Courtenay started this thread.

Not being on Facebook is fine. :) When there is something going on, I aim to post updates both there and in the webpbn forum (that is, here), to reach more people. When the site is down, though, then the Facebook group is really helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you for all you do!
I am close to being a Luddite. I avoid all of those social sites, so I really appreciate when you post things here. Otherwise I would never know.

Minor update: The server is still very slow. I am looking into it and will keep you posted.

Thank you Val, I do miss my everyday pbn, but I know you are doing your best. I will still check every day. Thank you for all you do!!

Thank you Val, I do miss my everyday pbn, but I know you are doing your best. I will still check every day. Thank you for all you do!!

Still very slow. Too slow to work on a puzzle.

Once again this site is running as slow as molasses. Strike that. As slow as glacial speed. Someone needs to hunt down the server hog. lol I miss solving puzzles.

I looked at a number of things but still haven't found a reason for the slowness. Note that the site *is* usable once you navigate to a puzzle and you are solving it. It's only the navigating that is so frustratingly slow.

The site is currently running a bit better. I didn't change anything, and it's still slower than it should be. I am juggling several other tasks but will circle back to this and keep you posted.

The site saves "undo" information each time each person works on solving a puzzle, which rapidly accumulates into a *lot* of data that sits around in the database. And once a puzzle is solved there is no reason to keep it around. I can clear out 22 megabytes of "undo" information from the database, which could potentially make the system run better, but first I want to make a backup of the database, which can take a long time. So this is a multi-day project. I will start that now and keep you posted.

Is that a one time clean-up or are you thinking undo info gets zapped upon completion of the puzzle? Not a huge deal to me either way, I can always just not fill in the last pixel if i want to return to a previous step to see if a different path was available :P

It is running quite a bit faster which is good for me since I don't have any drying paint to watch.

David - It's a one-time clean-up, not a change to how the system works. So everyday undo should still continue to work.

Currently the system is running zippily again. I didn't change anything. I did back up the database, but have *not* yet run the command to delete the 22 megabytes of old undo histories.

Valerie, I think the fact that you haven't yet done anything at your end to get the site humming along as it was before this glitch pretty much proves your initial suspicion @ #5: "I still think the most likely problem is a resource-hogging site on the shared server." Either that other site fixed the problem they created or the server host got other speed dragging reports and belatedly and more thoroughly tracked it down. Thank you again for always doing your best.

Norma, *loved* your comment, made me lol.

Having enough energy for watching paint dry reminds me of being pregnant, especially with my two older kids. Though my youngest is 17, so that was a while ago. Now I grow lithops plants and joke that it is "slower than watching paint dry." Here's a picture of some lithops plants that I grew from seeds. They are about a year old. For scale, the big one at the top right is a little smaller than the size of two pencil erasers. The little white rocks are grains of sand.

#22: Lollipop (lollipop) on Aug 8, 2025

Couldn't help myself, had to look it up, just getting it straight here: after a year, the big one is smaller than two pencil erasers? Oh, the excitement of watering them two seasons a year. That seems almost as thrilling as watching a plank warp. But whatever do you do with yourself the other two seasons?

#23: Valerie Mates (valerie) on Aug 9, 2025

I know, right?

Goto next topic

You must register and log in to be able to participate in this discussion.